THEY SAID I WOULD GET OVER IT

“They said I would get over it. I murdered my mother when I was 14 and I’m 44-years old and still haven’t gotten over it.” 

“You never get over that.” 

“”My sister came in screaming that my step-father and mother were in the driveway fighting. I was tired of the fighting so I grabbed a pocketknife, ran out, slashed my stepfather in the face, and stabbed my mother in the chest. She kept asking for water. I cut her artery. The police came before the ambulance and took me to jail. The next day they told me she didn’t make it. I went to TDC for three years. I have been in prison five times for a total of 17 years. They kicked me out of the mission, because I broke my curfew and was out on the streets with the wrong kind of people smoking crack. I was homeless so I went to MHMR and told them I was suicidal, but because the state hospital was full, the county said they would pay for my hospitalization in this private hospital. It’s nice here, but I don’t think I will ever get over murdering my mother even though they say I will get over it.”

FINDING BALANCE

There are individual differences for the need for vacation time. Some people become bored when they are away from the office too long. Others begin to lose a sense of worth when on extended vacations. Balance is the key to the successful use of vacations. Here are some ideas both for benefiting from vacation time:

Ø    Schedule vacations and keep them.

Ø    Quit work early or take time off when fatigue builds. Sustained effort toward a goal is best balanced with laughter and play.

Ø    Plan an occasional long weekend away from work.

Ø    Returning to work tired after a vacation or time off indi­cates the wrong approach to leisure time.

Ø    Have you ever noticed how people on the tennis court or the golf course shout and act as if they are fighting alli­gators in a swamp? If they aren't having a terrible time, they're certainly making life miserable for everybody around them. Those who enjoy life, play for the fun of play­ing. Paradoxically, when they're playing for the fun, they play better. Play—-free and spontaneous activity—-emphasizes enjoyment not achievement.

o     Emotion, not effort, enhances play. Attitude, not activity, determines whether we work or play.

o     Leisure activity should be fun, not a drain on the emotions.

o     Sports and games should bring more laughs than frowns.

Ø    Every day ask yourself, "Am I having fun yet?"

o      Surround yourself with people who fill you with joy and laughter.

o      Be an inverse paranoid-think the world is out to do you good. Decide to be hopeful and fun loving.

o      Don't take yourself so seriously. Those people who have a cosmic view of life culti­vate a lifestyle that allows them to tolerate outrageous fortune. They laugh at themselves and their situations. They develop a "hang-loose" philosophy of life.

o      Read or listen to humor regularly.

o      Keep a humor scrapbook.

o      Marry someone who thinks everything you say is funny.

o      When a situation becomes stressful, pretend it's all a Candid Camera episode.

o      Practice LOL—it's internal jogging.

o      Remember: He who laughs, lasts. A sense of humor - that goes beyond joke telling ­embraces laughing at oneself and life's absurdities. When we learn to "think funny" our life becomes enriched with friends and fellowship.

o      Play golf. Golf is just like life: Difficult and unfair. Par is 18 laughs a round.

Ø    Cultivate creativity. Creative people see connections between things when others see separation. Creativity requires knowledge, for many cre­ative ideas come from old concepts rearranged in a new way.

o      Break the rules by questioning the reasoning behind them. Alexander untied the Gordian knot by chopping it in half while others had failed for centuries because they followed the rule and tried to untie it.

o      Ask "what if' questions. Einstein conceived the theory of relativity by asking, "What if I could ride a light beam?"

The Apocrypha in the Venacular

The Apocrypha is a bunch of books between the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Catholic Bible. Protestant Bibles don’t have them.     

After Alexander the Great conquered the world around 330 BC, Greek became the predominate language. Just about everybody no matter what country you lived in spoke Greek at the time, sort of like all countries speak English now. The Hebrew authorities decided to translate their Hebrew Bible into Greek so more people could read it. They approved 70 scholars to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek and they named this translation the Septuagint because septuagint is a Greek word meaning “70.”

For some reason, the Septuagint came to include a bunch of Jewish stories that were not in the Jewish Bible. Around 90 years after Christ was born a bunch of Jews got together and decided that they weren’t going to approve the Septuagint translation any more because it had these extra stories. The Jews rejected the Septuagint translation, but the Christians—all of whom belonged to the Catholic Church at that time—decided to keep these so called “apocryphal” stories in their Bible.

After the Protestant Revolution in the sixteenth century, the Protestants decided to remove the apocryphal stories from the Protestant Bible. The Roman Catholic Bibles still have the apocryphal stories, but the Protestant Bibles and the Jewish Bibles don’t include the apocrypha.

The word “apocrypha” means hidden. The Catholics call these extra stories “apocrypha” because they are missing (or hidden) from the Jewish and Protestant Bibles.

The most important stories in the Apocrypha are First and Second Maccabees that tell about how the Jews got their independence from the Greeks. These two books also describe the bad things that Antiochus IV did to the Jews. He made the Jews worship the Greek gods. Antiochus also sacrificed a pig on the altar of the Hebrew Temple. This was dastardly thing to do and is called the “Abomination of Desolation.”  The Maccabee family got mad and led a revolt against the Greeks and won. (Afterward, the Jews had an independent state for about eighty years until Rome took over in 63 BC, but the Apocrypha doesn't tell about this .)

Another book in the Apocrypha, Judith, tells about a beautiful Jewish princess who gets the Assyrian king drunk, decapitates him, and smuggles his head out of the Assyrian camp by hiding it in a food bag. Susanna is a good courtroom drama that tells how Daniel tricks two evil Jewish elders into contradicting their story about a young virgin who they accuse of adultery.The Bel and the Dragon tells how Daniel solves the mystery of disappearing food from the temple. Some of the other books are songs, prayers, wisdom writings, and fables. It doesn’t take a scholar to tell why the Protestants and Jews left the Apocrypha out of their Bible. At the same time, we can appreciate the Catholics for leaving some juicy stories in their Bible.

Vacation Values

            Research clearly demonstrates that an annual vacation significantly cuts risks of most diseases by 20-30 percent. The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial of 12,000 American men revealed that during a 5-year study period those who took the most vacations had 20 percent less risk of dying from any cause than those who took the fewest vacations. A 1999 Dutch study found that overcommittment to work without an annual vacation increased physical and emotional illnesses.

            A study by the World Tourism Organization study showed that vacation time for Americans lags well behind other industrialized countries. The WTO listed the average annual vacation days by country as follows: Italy (42), France (37), Germany (35), Brazil (34), Britain (28), Canada (26), South Korea (25), Japan (25), the United States (13).                         More than one third of Americans fail to use their full vacation times. Of those who do take full time away from their regular jobs much of their vacation time is spent on activities other than rest and relaxation:

Ø    19 percent spend their vacation time on family or personal responsibilities, including illness, funerals, caring for sick children or parents

Ø    Another 13 percent spend vacation time going to school, working at another job, or participating in reserve military service.

Ø    One in five vacationers are contacted about work matters during non-work times

Ø    23 percent of employed adults in the United States report checking work email or voicemail while vacationing           

Causes of THE VACATION VOID

            A vacation-less life may be caused, in part, by cultural factors. Emotional conflicts that contribute to the overwork syndrome may be associated with the following:

Ø    Compensation for feelings of inferiority or insecurity

Ø    Identification with a demanding parental expectations

Ø    Recompense for physical limitations such as poor health or aging.

Ø    A solution for prob­lems of aggression and guilt

Ø    A need for approval

Ø    Excessive competitive drive

Ø    An attempt to enhance self-esteem

Ø    The desire to improve social status

Ø    The need for excessive financial gain

Ø    A fascination with the accumulation of material objects

Ø    The inability to refuse the requests of others

Ø    Self-imposed demands for perfection           

PROBLEMS ENGENDERED BY LACK OF VACATION TIME

            A self-induced increased workload causes deterioration in marriage and family life, undermining the main source of non-work related support. Likewise, avoiding vacation time leads to a decline in efficiency and initiative resulting in an increasing spiral of mistakes and complaints from associates and customers. Paradoxically, rather resulting in approve from others over­work eventually results in criticizes from family, colleagues, and employers.

             Usually those who fail to take regular vacations become cynical, negative, rigid, and inflexible. Accompanying poor work performance is the inability to relax and enjoy

recreational pursuits.

A DAY-BY-DAY VACATION: PREVENTING OVERWORK

            Vacation, a time of rest and freedom from work, can be experienced each and everyday. Duke University psychiatrist, John Rhoads, MD, studied successful, effective, and healthy executives who worked at least sixty hours weekly and compared these individuals with executives who developed burnout from working over sixty hours weekly. The following table summarizes those findings.           

 

THOSE WHO EXPERENCE WORK SUCCESS	THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE work burnout
Postpone thinking about problems	Ruminate about work problems
Take time off when productivity begins to diminish	Take their computer and cell phone on their vacations to keep-up with work activities
Use exercise, hobbies, and sports to deal with work stress	Use drugs or alcohol to deal with work stress
Enjoy scheduled vacations	Tend to postpone vacations
Cultivate a stable family life	Spend very little time with their family
Maintain friendships	Have a difficult time cultivating friendships
Exercise regularly	Watch television regularly
Have varied interest outside of work	Feel uncomfortable away from work
Can laugh at themselves	Take life and themselves too seriously

 

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

HOW TO BECOME A NUCLEAR ENGINEER

I asked my friend how he became a chemical engeer. This is what he said:

When I was in high school, I worked at my father’s gas station. At that time we filled the tank with gas, checked the air in the tires, popped the hood and checked to oil level, and washed the windshield.

A guy used to come in every Saturday to get gas. He had a ’57 Chevy Bel-Air 2-Door Hardtop and he always brought his girl—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I was 15-years old at the time. I would wash and wash his windshield looking at the girl’s legs. This guy was handsome and looked rich. He dressed a little richer than anyone else I had ever met. I always wondered what he did for a living to get such a beautiful girl and such a cool car. Finally, my curiosity overcame my shyness. When he was paying for the gas, I got up the nerve to ask him. 

“Sir, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a chemical engineer.”

I didn’t know what a chemical engineer was so the next day I asked my chemistry teacher. When he told me and said what it took to become a chemical engineer, I figured I could do it because I was pretty good at science and math.

I was kind of what they call a nerd today. All the pretty girls went out with the football players not the nerds, but if this guy could get a girl that pretty, I decided to become a chemical engineer.

I was real poor. When I found out they were giving scholarships to people who majored in nuclear engineering, I decided to change my major to nuclear engineering. If it hadn’t been for that girl’s legs and nuclear engineering scholarships, I would probably still be pumping gas at my father’s station…except maybe I would own it by now.

DOES IT HURT?

"You have some impressive burn scars. All up your left arm, down your back, across your chest, and belly."

"Tried to burn myself to death. I was drunk and couldn't take it anymore. Poured gasoline all over my body and lit a match."

"Did it hurt? I mean when you get third degree burns, it doesn't hurt. Did it burn right through the skin real fast so it didn't hurt or did it take awhile to damage the nerves?"

"It hurt like hell."

"Pulling off the burn scars was just as bad, I bet."

"That was even worse. Pulling those clothes off that stuck to your body and then pulling off that dead skin everyday."

"Looks like the doctors did a good job. You've healed up great."

"Yeah. Now my back's killing me. The doctors say my back has slipped out and is rubbing the sciatic nerve."

"Is that why you are walking U-shaped? I never saw anybody walk U-shaped before. Your walk is not from burn contractures is it?"

"No. Its from climbing too many ladders painting houses."

"I figured you were a painter--using paint thinner to burn yourself. You were drunk at the time. How many painters are alcoholics?"

"About 99% of 'em?"

"How come?"

"I don't know. Associations I guess. They drink, you drink. You drink, they drink. Climbing ladders with the wrong crowd."

"Drinkin' and slippin'. Bad combination for back problems. I can help you though. Need to get you on some medicines that will work. First I want to do an MRI on the back--see how much damage you've done"

(I figured correctly that there would be very little serious damage to his back. Bet two nurses two dimes that he would have no disk disease. They took one look at that walk and were suckered in. The way he walked told me there was nothing anatomically wrong with his back. People who are hurt don't walk that way. I got the MRI to build rapport so I could outline a treatment program that I knew would work--Lyrica, Effexor XR, high doses of Motrin, physical therapy, and--a medicine that most doctors would avoid given the patient's alcohol history--Valium. Valium was necessary to cut the muscle spasm. When you walk like a U, your muscles get tight. Valium loosens them up. Within 4-5 days, he was walking straight. There were a lot of nuances to his treatment that I won't discuss in detail, but it begins with talking the persons language, treating him with dignity, treating him like a regular guy, being a friend, asking questions that most people wouldn't ask, questions that a 5-year old would ask another 5-year old--"Did it hurt?” --discussing all the medicines with him and telling him how they are going to work, expecting him to get better, discussing the MRI with him in a way that he understands and doesn't feel criticized, trusting him with Valium, telling him to walk upright, congratulating him with each improvement, telling him I am proud of his progress, using humor and good cheer and just generally liking him.")

In less than a week, he was a changed man. Happy, hopeful. How long this good outcome will last is the great unknown, but if he does slip back into drinking or become depressed again, when he comes back to the hospital, he will make more positive advances and little by little he will learn to live a better live. I know in the long run he will do OK. I'm proud of him.

Foreign Philosophy

“How many times have you been admitted to psychiatric hospitals since you came over to Texas after Hurricane Katrina?”

“Three or four times every year. Just like I did when I was in New Orleans. I would go into a psychiatric hospital to get some shots for my nerves."

“When you are not being admitted to psychiatric hospitals, what do you do? Do you have a job?”

“No, man. I’m on disability.”

“You look pretty healthy to me. What are you on disability for?

“My nerves, man. They’re bad.”

“As we say in Texas, ‘Work cures misery.’ Working would make you feel better. It would give you something to do and you would feel better about yourself.”

“But if I worked I would lose my disability and my mother needs my disability money.”

“You are 27 years old. You still live with your mother?”

“Yeah. She needs my disability money.”

“If you worked you would make more money than you get on disability and you could give your mother more money. There are lots of jobs around here. Getting a job would be good for you…and your mother.”

“Hey. You’re supposed to have sympathy for me. Why are you talking to me about getting work? I need some shots. I need sympathy.”

“My job is to help you get well. Work would help you get well. It would be good for you. Work would give you something to do. Work would build your self-esteem. You could make some money, move out of your mother’s house, and become independent. You would even have more money to give to your mother.”

“I need a shot, not work. I’m allergic to every kind of shot except Ativan. I’m not allergic to that and I need a shot of Ativan to settle down. I can’t take medicines by mouth. My stomach is too tender for pills. It’s been tender since I was a kid and went into psych hospitals. If I don’t get any Ativan shots I start to lose it and the nurses get scared.”

“Let me introduce you to our Texas nurses. Come on over to the nursing station and meet some of our finest nurses. This is Fender. He’s 6’2’’ and weights about 250. As you can see—all muscle. This is Billy Bud. He’s smaller, but wiry. Wrestles steers in local rodeos for a hobby. Broke a steer’s neck once. It was an accident, of course. His feet got tangled and he twisted too hard trying to get his balance... and pop. Ever hear a steer’s neck pop? Weird sound. You never forget it once you hear it.”

“Maybe I’ll try one of those nerve pills. My stomach might have toughened-up some since I was a kid in the hospital.”

“That’s a good idea. Those pills will help you settle down as you are making out a list of Louisiana towns you’d like to live in. They don’t have any work to speak of in Louisiana, but they make up for it with lots of sympathy. Fender and Billy Bud will take you down to the bus station when their shift is over. And don’t forget to call your mother and tell her to meet you at the station. She will need your disability money when you get to Louisiana.”

19% of US Psychiatrists Are Over the Age of 65

Nineteen percent of US psychiatrists are over the age of 65, compared with 12 percent of other physicians; 30 percent of psychiatrists and 20 percent of other physicians are over the age of 60. The median age of psychiatrists is in the mid-50s.

There is a growing divergence between increasing demand and shrinking supply of psychiatrists. Psychiatrists less available today for providing integrated psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Even in their role simply as medication managers in split treatment, most psychiatrists in private practice seem accessible only to affluent, full-fee patients outside managed care.

Australia is currently experiencing widespread shortages of psychiatrists. The changing nature of the workforce and increasing demand mean that these shortages are unlikely to ease.

While Australian psychiatrists have previously been predicted to retire at age 70, data indicates that the majority (62 per cent) remain in the workforce beyond that point. Psychiatrists retire later than the general population in general and many do not expect to retire at all. Psychiatrists may choose to keep working well into old age. Fears about losing their professional role, letting patients down, and the inability to find a replacement to take over their practice contribute to a psychiatric career that extends into the seventh and eighth decade.

Mendacity or Denial?

“You took 40 Valium when you got into a fight with your boyfriend. Do you use any other drugs or drink alcohol to excess? Any IV drugs? Smoke any crack?”

“No. I don’t drink and I don’t use drugs.”

“That’s interesting, because the ER doctor was concerned that you might have ingested more than Valium so he called the pharmacist who told him you had a prescription for 180 Xanax tablets filled two weeks ago.”

“I flushed those down the commode.”

“The pharmacists also told the ER doctor that he filled your prescription for 50 Vicodin last week.”

“I gave those to my boyfriend.”

“It says in your chart that you have Hepatitis C.”

“I got it injecting cocaine.”

“I thought you said you didn’t use IV drugs.”

“I forgot.”

“Your chart also indicates you have cirrhosis of the liver. From drinking? And your probation officer called. She said you had been in jail numerous times for public intoxication and driving under the influence. Sounds like you have a significant drug and alcohol problem. What do you think?”

“I just use because all my friends do drugs and alcohol. I can stop anytime that I want. It’s not a problem for me. Can I go home?”

THE SITTING HANDICAP

"Where do you work?"

"Repair shop."

"Repairing what?"

"Cars."

"How long have you worked at the repair shop?"

"Since high school."

"Let's see. You are 34-years old now. So you have been working at the repair shop for at least 16 years."

"Yeah."

"Do you have any friends at work?"

"No."

"Do you have any friends anywhere?"

"No."

"You drink a lot of beer. You've been drinking about a case a day for a long time. Actually since you got out of high school."

"Yeah."

"Who do you drink with?"

"No one."

"You drink by yourself, everyday?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you drink?"

"It makes me happy."

"What do you do when you are happy? Do you talk more?"

"No. I just drink more. It makes me happy."

"In what way. How does it make your happy?"

"I don't know."

"How can you tell you are happy?"

"I don't know."

"If drinking makes you happy, why do you want to stop drinking?"

"My wife said she would leave me if I didn't stop drinking."

"Why does she want you to stop drinking?"

"I don't know."

"Did you ask her?"

"No."

"Do you talk? I mean does she talk to you and do you talk to her."

"Not much."

"Do you talk more or less when your drink?"

"About the same, I guess."

"Not very much then?"

"No. Not very much."

"How long have you and your wife been married?"

"About 14 years."

"14 years? What...I mean how did you go about getting married since you don't talk much?"

"She liked to watch TV. I like to watch TV too when I am drinking."

"Well...I'm interested in how you got together. What did you say to her? How did you find out she liked to watch TV?

"She told me at my parents house."

"At your parents house?"

"Yeah. Her parents and my parents were friend. She came over with her parents and we watched TV together."

"Why did you decide to get married? I mean what motivated you to get married."

"I don't know. We just did."

Most psychiatrist dread talking with schizoids. Drying paint, burnt toast, growing grass is more interesting. At least paint dries; toast burns; grass grows. Schizoids don't do anything. They don't talk; they don't laugh; they don't cry." They sit mainly. It's sad to watch them just sit there, but they don't seem to be sad about sitting. They don't know any better. They're handicapped.

When we hear the word handicap, we usually think about blindness or deafness. But handicaps can be extended to include personality traits. Certainly, a person with no sense of humor is handicapped as is a person who has no feelings. Being bored and boring is a handicap. The inability to cultivate friends is a handicap. The inability to responding to the needs of others is a handicap. A lack of friends is a handicap. The inability to experience pleasure is a handicap.

Schizoids shouldn’t be confused with schizophrenics. Schizophrenics have bizarre delusions and weird hallucinations. They think that they come from the planet K-Pax, or that they have x-ray eyes, or some other peculiarity that makes them interesting.

Schizoids are dull, stale, and flat. No one really knows how he or she got to be the way they are. They must have some sort of abnormal gene floating around in their chromosomes. Something activates this abnormal gene. Maybe childhood deprivation contributes to the problem. Regardless of the cause, there is no treatment. Psychiatrists don’t have many schizoids as patients, because schizoids generally do no one harm and they usually don’t have many complaints. They just sit.

################################
The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any resemblance to the names, character, or history of any person is coincidental and unintentional.

WORDLESS

Working the New York Times crossword puzzle, I found myself wordless so I decided to use the Internet to help fill in the blanks. I searched for “Chief Hun, in Scandinavian legend” and “REX PARKER DOES THE NYT CROSSWORD PUZZLE” headed the Goggle list. Rex had this to say about 14 across—"an answer that inveterate solvers likely nailed and everyone else likely gawked at helplessly—Atli."

He then discussed the language of crosswords that I found fascinating. He told how he solved the puzzle and then discussed each word and clue. What great information for crossword neophytes like me. (And what an intellectual embarrassment. I’m certain, for example, that Rex Parker would never use the adjective “great.”)

So, who is this crossword guru, Rex Parker? His Blog describes Rex as the “55th greatest crossword puzzle solver in the Universe.” His intellect is certainly light years beyond mine, like 55 to the 55th power. He is a steeplejack and his interests include comics, crime fiction, gin, crossword puzzles, tennis, and…scansion, dactyls, anaphora…and knuckleballs, brushbacks, etc.

I had to look up:

Scansion = a way to mark the metrical patterns of a line of poetry.

Dactyls = a type of meter in poetry with a long syllable followed by two short syllables.
An example of dactylic meter is the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline, which is in dactylic hexameter:
This is the / forest prim- / evil. The / murmuring / pines and the / hemlocks,
The first five feet of the line are dactyls; the sixth a trochee.

Anaphora = emphasizing words by repeating them at the beginnings of neighboring clauses.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...

I continue to be amazed about how little I know. But that is better than OK, because learning new things is more fun than hitting a knuckleball out of the park and admitting you don’t know something is more honest than a brushback pitch.

She Told Me

She told me she had been a tabletop dancer. “Got married 17 times that way. I would dance. They would marry me. I’d get bored, leave one, dance some more, and marry another one.”

“Why didn’t you marry a rich one?”

“None of the guys, I danced for were rich.”

“Too bad.”

“I wasn’t in it for the money. I liked the attention. My boob job helped.”

Rolled with fat, sloppy, balding, and boob-jobless when she became my patient, she was the prototypical Wal-Mart shopper. With her cart loaded with chips, candy, cigarettes, cat liter packages, cosmetics, Coors, and charcoal lighter, she could weave her way down one hundred Wal-Mart aisles without drawing anyone’s attention. My imagination lacked the reach to visualize her mesmerizing 17 men while table dancing.

Her wacky psychiatric descriptions seemed as fabricated as her dancing history. Sobbing, hysterical protestations marked her office visits. Every medication gave her bizarre side effects, but she constantly appealed for “pills to ease my bewildered brain.” Although possessing creative suicidal plans, she refused to be admitted to the psychiatric unit with all the “nut cases.”

Snakes were her favorite hallucinatory subjects. Once she claimed to see snakes climbing out of the wall—“Big snakes. Huge snakes. Cobras. And Boas. They are vicious too. They are trying to bite me and all of them want to squeeze me to death if they don’t bite me dead first.” I gave her an antipsychotic, Risperdal.

The next day her third-cousin, once removed left a message on my voice mail: “That medicine you gave Sally Sue made her go crazy. She put on pink lipstick and dressed in a pink baby doll gown and went walking downtown where she picked up a pinkless man and took him home and made out with him right on her pink carpet. That medicine turned her into a sex maniac. She told me you were the best psychiatrist she ever had. I don’t believe her, but that’s what she told me.”
##############################################################

The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any resemblance to the names, character, or history of any person is coincidental and unintentional.

A CUP OF WATER

         You have heard about a great many people who did something with their lives. It is only fit and proper that you read a little about those who didn’t. Millions started doing something significant, and then stopped doing anything worthwhile permanently. These, by their very numbers, are respectable, and are therefore entitled to be heard—not in a loud voice, but a modest one; not a boastful one, but an apologetic one. They ought not be allowed much space among people who did something with their lives. I concede that. But they ought at least to be allowed to explain the process by which they didn’t do anything. Surely, this sort of revelation has some value.

         I must have been 5-years old, because it was before I went to school I think. We lived in Wharton, Texas. I can’t remember the date exactly. How long ago that was. Sixty years.

         I went to Wharton several years ago to visit the neighborhood where we lived for six months or so. I found our old house. It was still there. A tiny rectangle shaped clapboard house, painted white but not fresh. The weedy vacant lot next door was still there. And just like then there were no trees around. The garage was detached from the house and sagged a little. There was still just a gravel drive up to the garage. The house seemed locked up and I wondered if anyone lived there, but I didn’t go up to the door and knock. After all what would I say? “Hello, I lived here long ago.”

         The thing that struck me the most was the hill going up to our neighbors house. It wasn’t a hill at all, just a slight incline instead. But to a little boy a slight incline is a hill.

         As I said, I think I was five-years old at the time. I could have be six, but almost certainly not four. I was standing out in the front of the house for some reason. I don’t remember my mother being there. Or my father. Or my brother. I remember being alone. Another example of how time fades memory, for surely I wasn’t alone at that age.

         A garbage truck pulled up to empty our garbage can. A man hopped off the rear of the truck and headed for me. He wore grease-smeared overalls; he was slim, almost gaunt. He had a two or three day stubble flexed with gray. He was sweating profusely and smelled like rotten eggs and mildewed vegetables.

         “Little boy,” he said. “Would you please run and get me a drink of water? I’m very thirsty.”

         I ran to the house and entered the back door. What kind of glass was I going to use? Certainly not the good glasses or even the jam glasses. This man was old and sweaty. He couldn’t drink out of the good glasses. I began looking in the bottom kitchen cabinets for something appropriate for the grubby, stinky man to drink out of. I looked and looked. I needed to find something. At the same time, for some reason, I didn’t want to face that man again. Finally, I found a chipped Mason jar and filled it with water. I ran back to the street. The garbage truck and the man were gone. I stood out in the front yard holding that Mason jar filled with water. I held it for a long time.          

I looked down the street, wondering if the man ever got his water. I stood there holding the water, knowing that I had not done anything and the thing that I had not done was very significant.

 

*********************************************************

 

 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

                                                                Matthew 25:3-36

 

 

THE POWER OF FOUR

THE POWER OF FOUR
by Tom Hanks

Not long ago I was reading about the problem of gridlock on the freeways of Southern California--the traffic jams which cripple the city, stranding millions and laying waste to time, energy, and the environment. Gridlock is as serious and as impenetrable a problem as any we face, a dilemma without cure, without solution, like everything else in the world, it seems.

Some smart folks concocted a computer simulation of gridlock to determine how many cars should be taken off the road to turn a completely jammed and stilled highway into a free-flowing one. How many cars must be removed from that commute until a twenty-mile drive takes twenty-five minutes instead of two hours? The results were startling.

Four cars needed to be removed from that virtually stuck highway to free up that simulated commute... four cars out of each one hundred. Four cars per one hundred cars, four autos out of every one hundred autos, forty cars from each thousand, four hundred out of ten thousand. Four cars out of one hundred are not that many. Two cars out of every fifty--one driver out of twenty-five drivers.

Now, if this simulation is correct, it is the most dramatic definition in earthly science and human nature of how a simple choice will make a jaw-dropping difference to our world. Call it the Power of Four. One commuter in your neighborhood could put the rush back into rush hour. So, if merely four people out of a hundred can make gridlock go away by choosing not to use their car, imagine the other changes that can be wrought just by four of us--four of you--out of a hundred.

Take the Power of Four and apply it to any and every area of your concern. Politics:Four votes swung from one hundred into another hundred is the difference between gaining control and losing clout. Culture: 2 ticket buyers out of fifty can make a small, odd film profitable. Economics: by boycotting a product 1 consumer out of 25 can move that product to the back of the shelf, and eventually off it altogether.

Help is a four- letter word. We will always be able to help.

Shame

Pride knocks you down; shame keeps you down; humility pulls you up. 

The film, The Lion King, is a good example of how pride leads to shame. Humility allows us to overcome shame. When shame is put behind us, we can inherit the kingdom.

The birth of a lion prince, Simba, makes his uncle Scar the second in line to the throne. After Scar kills the King, Scar causes Simba to believe it was his fault. Simba flees the kingdom in shame. After years of exile he is persuaded to return home to overthrow the usurper and claim the kingdom. 

Young Simba: Hey, Uncle Scar, guess what? 
Scar: I despise guessing games. 
Young Simba: I'm gonna be King of Pride Rock. 
Scar: Oh, goody. 
Young Simba: My dad just showed me the whole kingdom. And I'm gonna rule it all. Heheh. 
Scar: Yes, well forgive me for not leaping for joy. Bad back, you know. 
[flops on his side] 
Young Simba: Hey Uncle Scar, when I'm King, what'll that make you? 
Scar: A monkey's uncle. 
Young Simba: [laughs] You're so weird. 
Scar: You have no idea. 

---

Adult Simba: I know what I have to do. But going back will mean facing my past. I've been running from it for so long. 
[Rafiki hits Simba on the head with his stick] 
Adult Simba: Ow! Jeez, what was that for? 
Rafiki: It doesn't matter. It's in the past. 
[laughs] 
Adult Simba: Yeah, but it still hurts. 
Rafiki: Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it. 
[swings his stick at Simba again who ducks out of the way] 
Rafiki: Ha. You See? [You learned from the past.] So what are you going to do? 
Adult Simba: I'm going back! 

Rafiki: Good! Go on! Get out of here! 

---

Scar: Ah. so you haven't told them your little secret. Well, Simba, now's your chance to tell them. Tell them who is responsible for Mufasa's death. 
Adult Simba: [pause] I am 
Sarabi: [whispering] It's not true. Tell me it's not true. 
Adult Simba: It's true. 
Scar: You see? He admits it. Murderer! 
Adult Simba: No! It was an accident! 
Scar: If it weren't for you Mufasa would still be alive. It's your fault he's dead. Do you deny it? 
Adult Simba: No. 
Scar: Then you're guilty. 
Adult Simba: No, I'm *not* a murderer! 

---

Scar: Look Simba. You're in trouble again. But this time Daddy isn't here to save you and now everyone knows *why*! 

---

Adult Simba: Tell them the truth! 
Scar: But Simba truth is in the eye of the behold... 
Scar: [Simba chokes him, he whispers] All right. All right. I did it. 
Adult Simba: So they can hear you! 
Scar: I killed Mufasa! 

He mocks proud mockers, but gives grace to the humble.

The wise inherit honor, but fools he holds up to shame.

Proverbs 3:34-35